If you would, please turn with me in your Bible to Matthew chapter 6, verses 25 through 34. It’s on page 811 in your pew Bible. I saw that this was actually your Bible memorization passage for the past few weeks, which is helpful, but we still need to make sure we know exactly where we are in context because when you dive into the immediate context you’ll find that this passage is very closely tied to the passage that immediately precedes it. And this is really easy to see because, “Therefore,” at the beginning of verse 25 points us back to what came before. “In light of what was just written,” which is verses 19 through 24, “do this.” Matthew chapter 6, verses 19 through 24, is the passage where Jesus says, “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal. But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Jesus is communicating in this passage that His people must choose between competing treasures, and He communicates that choice in absolutes. He says, “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.”
One commentator says that, “The devotion that Jesus requires is so extreme that one must hate or completely reject anything that hinders attachment to Him.” In other words, there can be no divided loyalties with God. If loyalty is divided, then it’s evidence of idolatry. You can’t be partially committed to God and His kingdom. Now, therefore, Jesus will then continue His instruction in our passage this evening. Would you please pray with me?
Heavenly Father, we come to You in the name of Jesus. And Father, we are so grateful that we get to open Your Word together again. Father, we need Your help as we do that. Would Your Spirit direct us as we read and consider Your Word. Would Your Spirit continue to use Your Word to transform our lives. In Jesus’ name we pray, amen.
Please turn your attention to Matthew chapter 6, beginning in verse 25. This is God’s Word:
“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.”
Amen.
I’m not sure about most of you, but when someone tells me, “Don’t be anxious,” that tends to make anxiety build up inside of me. It almost feels like an instinctive response. “Don’t be anxious!” “Okay, I wasn’t anxious, but now that you mention it, I might be a little bit anxious!” Put a pin in that thought for just a second because I want you to consider both the original audience that Matthew was writing to and the original audience that Jesus delivered this message to.
Who was Matthew’s original audience? Well, Matthew was writing to people during the first century, and the majority of Matthew’s audience probably lived in the cities, and on top of that, the message of the Gospel was embraced primarily by the poor at first. So I want you to listen to this description of a lower income area of a first century city. “Tenement cubicles were smoky, dark, often damp and always dirty. The smell of sweat, urine, feces and decay permeated everything. Outside on the street it was little better. Mud, open sewers, manure and crowds. In fact, human corpses, adult as well as infant, were sometimes just pushed into the street and abandoned.” If you’ve ever been to the French Quarter when it’s crowded, think about those smells. Think about how dirty it can get. And then turn that up about ten notches. That’s where the people that Matthew was writing to lived.
But who was Jesus first speaking to? Well, Jesus was on a mountain near the Sea of Galilee. This is the Sermon on the Mount. We know that He is speaking to His disciples but there is also a bigger crowd mentioned at the end of the sermon, and that crowd is probably more rural. It’s likely that the crowd was primarily made up of rural peasants, people who tried to farm enough to feed their families and maybe make just a little extra money. And remember, it’s the first century. Drought and insect infestations meant no crops, which meant no food and no money. Y’all, starvation was not uncommon for these people. It was a real threat. It was certainly more of a threat than it is for anyone in this room today. I would imagine that most of you know where your next meal is coming from. You can probably count on three meals tomorrow as well. But before you dismiss Jesus’ command to not be anxious, based on your own personal experience, remember that Jesus delivered the message to people who had plenty of worldly reasons to be anxious.
So why is Jesus concerned about something like anxiety? Why does that matter? It matters because anxiety ultimately reveals a lack of trust in God. Pure and simple. Have you ever had a small cut on your hand that just lingers? In fact, after a day or two it starts to swell up, it gets red, and you eventually realize that there is more going on than you initially thought. You’ve got a splinter stuck below the surface. The surface level issue is just a small cut, but deeper down the splinter is the real issue, and if you don’t deal with it then the problem is going to get much worse. Anxiety points to a deeper issue. There is something below the surface. Anxiety is a symptom of a lack of trust in God, which is why Jesus’ primary message in this passage is tied to trusting God. Trust God to provide. That’s what Jesus is getting at here. Trust God to provide.
And to flesh that out, I want to look at three questions that the text answers. “What should you not be anxious about?” “Why should you not be anxious?” and “What should you do?” “What should you not be anxious about?” “Why should you not be anxious?” and “What should you do?” Jesus is not just encouraging; in this passage, He is commanding that you trust God to provide. So first, let’s answer the question, “What should you not be anxious about?” Because Jesus says, “Do not be anxious,” and He points to specific things that you should not be anxious about. What are those things? Look with me at verse 25. “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on.” Remember, “Therefore,” points back to what came before. Jesus said you can’t serve both God and money. He is saying that there are no divided loyalties in God’s kingdom.
Now, assuming that His disciples, assuming that His followers will make the right choice, that they will in fact serve God rather than money, in light of that choice, “Don’t be anxious about” – what? Jesus starts about as broadly as you can and then He breaks that down. He first says, “Don’t be anxious about your life.” And here, that word translated “life” really means “earthly life.” Don’t be anxious about your earthly life. Don’t be anxious about the things that Solomon in Ecclesiastes says are “under the sun,” the things that you can see, the things that you can touch. Jesus then fleshes this out in more detail and points to the things that you eat and drink, the things that keep your earthly life going. You legitimately need food and water to live, but Jesus says, “Don’t be anxious about what you will eat or drink.” Likewise, He says, “Don’t be anxious about your body.” Don’t be anxious about your physical body. What does your physical body need? Well, Jesus points to clothes. You may need clothes to protect you from the cold. You might need clothes to protect you from the sun. Your body needs those things, but again, Jesus says, “Don’t be anxious about what you will put on. Don’t be anxious about what you will wear.”
But y’all, after Jesus says, “Serve God, not money,” and then He says, “Don’t be anxious about what you will eat or drink, don’t be anxious about your clothing,” essentially, “Don’t be anxious about the things you’ll need to get through each day, don’t be anxious about the basic necessities that sustain your life,” when Jesus says that, it wouldn’t be surprising if someone said, “Okay, Jesus, I hear You. I’ve chosen God, not money. I’m not a slave to money. I’m not trying to build up treasure on earth. I’m trying to follow You. You’ve told me that I shouldn’t be anxious about food or drink or clothing, so remind me, who’s going to take care of me because I do need to eat, I do need to drink. I’d certainly like to have clothes.”
Don’t forget, Jesus is speaking to people whose days were structured to get enough to make it through each day. There were no supermarkets, no refrigerators, no freezers, no preservatives. Asking, “What am I going to eat today?” that question wasn’t asked in the same way it is today. When my daughters ask, “What’s for supper?” they know that the answer isn’t, “Nothing.” My daughters are not asking, “Are we going to eat tonight?” they are asking, “What are we going to eat tonight? Is it going to be something that I like?” But the crowd that’s listening to the Sermon on the Mount, when they say, “What am I going to eat today?” that question may legitimately be, “Am I going to eat today?” But even to those in seemingly insecure circumstances, those who from our vantage point it would seem completely natural for them to be anxious, even to those people Jesus says, “Don’t be anxious. Don’t be anxious about food. Don’t be anxious about what you’ll drink. Don’t be anxious about what you’ll wear.” In other words, “Don’t be anxious about the daily necessities of life.”
Now make sure you understand this, when Jesus says, “Don’t be anxious,” He’s not saying, “Don’t care about anything.” You should care about being able to provide for your family. Loving your family, your friends, loving your brothers and sisters in Christ requires some reasonable concern for them. Of course it does. Jesus isn’t condemning all care and concern. Far from it. What He’s condemning is anxiety that begins to take over, anxiety that builds up because you think you can control everything in your life, anxiety that is present because you think you’re self-sufficient. What Jesus is saying is, “Don’t trust in your own strength. Don’t think that building up treasures on earth is going to protect you in any ultimate way.” What He’s commanding is, “Trust God to provide.” When your anxiety begins to spike, do you remember that your God has numbered the hairs on your head? Do you remember like the psalmist does in Psalm 139 that your God ordained every day of your life before you even lived one? Do you remember that?
Now how does this tie towards something like missions? Well do you ever get anxious about how God is going to continue to grow His Church in the midst of what at least appears to be increasing opposition from the world? Brothers and sisters, God’s Church has always faced opposition from the world, but Jesus promises that the gates of hell will not prevail over His Church. Jesus wins. It’s already decided. You can be optimistic about the missionaries you support not because they are super gifted or talented, but because regardless of who plants or waters, God gives the growth. God will grow His Church. He will continue to gather His people to Himself until Christ returns. That is certain. Trust God to provide. Jesus lays out for you what you shouldn’t be anxious about.
You shouldn’t be anxious about your day to day needs, which leads right to the second question the text answers. Let’s consider the question, “Why should you not be anxious?” “Okay, Jesus, I hear You. You’re telling me not to be anxious about the things that I need each day, but why? Why should you not be anxious?” Look first at the end of verse 25 with me. Why should you not be anxious? Jesus says “Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?” Jesus begins His argument by saying, “Life and the body are more important than food and clothing.” Your life and your body are more important than food and clothing. One commentator argues that, “Even the poorest can’t help but agree with the statement that food and clothing are not the most important things in life.” He says this, he says, “This discourages the wealthy and the comfortable from concentrating on their own success and the poor and uncomfortable from concentrating on their own misery.” Did you hear that? When Jesus says, “Life is more than food and the body is more than clothing,” He is both discouraging those who are wealthy from concentrating on everything they have because there are more important things. And at the same time, He is discouraging the poor from concentrating on what they don’t have because there are more important things. He is addressing both rich and poor.
Why should you not be anxious about your daily needs? Because life is more than food and the body is more than clothing. In fact, your daily needs can distract you to the point that you begin to think that what is right in front of you, what is under the sun is all that there is. You can start living like a functional atheist. You can begin to think that the material world, the things that you can see, that that’s all there is. Why should you not be anxious? Jesus then turns to creation. Look with me at verse 26. “Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?” Do you know that human beings, that includes everyone here, human beings are the crown jewel of God’s creation? You’ve been given dominion over everything else in creation, so if God cares for the birds who don’t sow or reap, they don’t put away extra food in barns, freezers or refrigerators, but they still eat, your heavenly Father feeds the birds.
And don’t make a mistake here. The point is not that birds don’t work. If you watch birds, they are very busy. They work. The point is not, “Don’t work.” It’s, “Don’t worry. Don’t be anxious.” You are worth so much more than the birds because you are made in the image of God. God is fully sovereign. He is completely in control of everything in creation, down to what the smallest birds eat each day. If that’s the case, if God really is in control, if He provides for the birds, won’t He provide for you?
On top of that, Jesus points to the practical reality of anxiety. “Why should you not be anxious?” Look with me at verse 27. “And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?” What does anxiety add to your life? What does worry produce? Does it add time to your life? Are you in control of the length of your life? It’s unfortunate that the world tells you, “Yes,” that you are in control of your life. Follow this diet. Exercise this much. Don’t even look at gluten! I recognize that what you eat and how you take care of your body matters. Please, take care of your body. But also know that your days on this earth are numbered. Your days in this earthly body are few. What Jesus is saying is that worry and anxiety won’t make you live longer. In fact, they are actually more likely to cut your life short. You can’t add days to your life by worrying. Trust God to provide.
Jesus then adds another example from creation. Look with me at verse 28. “And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.” King Solomon was one of the wealthiest men in the ancient world. People traveled from all over the world to see the magnificence of his kingdom, but Jesus says that God clothes the wildflowers in more splendor than Solomon. And those flowers themselves don’t contribute anything to their beauty. But he continues, look in verse 30, “But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?” Jesus takes that metaphor a step further. The grass, grass that is used for fuel tomorrow, it’s tossed into an oven to burn. It’s alive one moment and then it is completely burned up. If God cares about the grass, and He does, if He cares about the grass, how much more does He care for His children? How much more does He care for you?
And don’t make a mistake here when you look at verse 30. When God says, “You of little faith,” He’s not saying, “You of no faith.” There’s a big difference there. If you have the weakest faith – what my daughters when they were younger would refer to as, “a tiny drop of faith” – if you have a tiny drop of faith in the right object, in the Lord Jesus Christ, that’s enough. If you’re jumping out of an airplane, weak faith and a working parachute is much better than great faith and your ability to fly. The amount of your faith, the strength of your faith is not what saves you. Jesus saves you. Your faith doesn’t atone for your sins. Jesus atones for your sins. Only when you understand that can you not be anxious about the things that you need each day. Why should you not be anxious? Because your God is a God who saves. Salvation belongs to the Lord from beginning to end. He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Christ Jesus.
Which is why the last reason Jesus lists to not be anxious is so striking. Why should you not be anxious? Look at verse 32. “For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all.” Jesus says being anxious is something reserved for the Gentiles. In this case, that means unbelievers. It’s not surprising that unbelievers are anxious. They should in fact be anxious. If you’re here today and you don’t have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, anxiety is what you should feel. Why? Because according to your worldview, you have to supply everything for yourself. Everything. It’s all on you. That includes facing God’s judgment. You’ll have to stand or fall based on your own merit, and that’s a scary proposition because you’ll face God’s wrath for all of your sin. But when the Christian stands before God, the Christian is clothed in the righteousness of Christ. God is gracious and merciful to His people because of the work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
When you are anxious, what is it that’s driving your anxiety? What things are you anxious about? Are you anxious about your daily needs? You may be. Are you anxious about what you are going to eat tomorrow? Again, remember, Jesus doesn’t say you shouldn’t care about things; He’s not saying you shouldn’t prepare for things. Planning your meals out for the week, planning your grocery budget is wise. But if you anxiety begins to take over, if it reveals that you don’t trust God, if it causes you to live like God is not in control, if your anxiety and worry works to make you think that you are in control of everything, that’s what Jesus is prohibiting. He is telling you that you are not in control, but your God is, and your God will provide everything you need. Why should you not be anxious? Because your God did not withhold His Son from you. He gave up His Son for you. And if that’s true, will He not give you all things? Trust God to provide.
Third and finally, this leads naturally to the last question we find answered in the text. “What should you do?” If you’re not to be anxious, if Jesus’ command is, “Trust God to provide,” then what do you do? How do you respond when situations that might cause anxiety pop up? Look with me at verse 33. “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” What does that mean? What does that mean to “seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness”? I would imagine that many of you have heard that hundreds of times, but what does it mean?
It might be more helpful to be clear about what it doesn’t mean at first because Jesus is certainly not commanding you to work for your justification. He’s not telling you, “Work hard and you will be right with God.” That’s not what he means. You are only declared righteous by the work of Christ. You can’t do enough good things to justify yourself. You can’t make yourself right with God. Salvation is by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. So what does Jesus mean when He says, “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness”? This is one commentator’s definition. “To seek first the kingdom is to desire above all to enter into, submit to, and participate in spreading the news of the saving reign of God, the Messianic kingdom already inaugurated by Jesus, and to live so as to store up treasures in heaven and the prospect of the kingdom’s consummation.”
If you were here this morning, we talked about the beautiful picture of the new heaven and the new earth in Revelation 22. I encouraged you to live with that end in mind. I encourage you that again. Trust God not only to provide for you today, but be confident that Christ has already won eternity for you. Don’t be anxious about tomorrow. Today has enough trouble. Serve the Lord wholeheartedly. Set your mind on the kingdom. Be grateful for the gift of salvation that is yours in Christ. Another pastor puts it this way. “In the end, just as there are only two kinds of piety, the self-centered and the God-centered, so there are only two kinds of ambition. One can be ambitious either for one’s self or for God. There is no third alternative.”
Brothers and sisters, are you ambitious for yourself or for God? Are you driven by desire to see the Gospel spread to the ends of the earth? Remember, there is no sacred, secular dichotomy so this is not a call for everyone to go into full time ministry. Working in full time ministry isn’t more important than being a doctor, lawyer, teacher, real estate agent, accountant or homemaker. You’re commanded to do everything to the glory of God. Working hard, doing your job well, that glorifies God. Being faithful and diligent in whatever place God has called you actually helps you not worry or be anxious. That is, if you have the right priorities. It’s not possible to have divided loyalties in God’s kingdom. You can’t serve God and money. That doesn’t mean you can’t make money. From someone who has had to raise a lot of money in the last three years, please, make more money! Grow your company. Get promoted. Expand your influence. But behind your efforts to build up your company, to be promoted, to gain influence, to make more money, what is ultimately driving you? Do you have eternity in view? Do you want to see the Gospel spread? Do you want to see the lost come to faith and the saints grow in grace? I sure hope so.
One last thing that I want to mention. This church has a lot of future pastors come through here. That’s one of the reasons that First Pres has been so influential in the life of the PCA. These future pastors grow up here, they’re members here while they are in seminary, they serve as interns. They might receive their first call here. You support them; you care for them. I urge you to encourage young men to think about church planting. If you’re here and you are one of those men, consider church planting. Just begin praying about it. There are hundreds of places that presbyteries all over the country want to plant churches but they just don’t have the men that want to do it. And I give that encouragement because I am often discouraged by the way people talk about church planting. I hear people say things like, “It takes a lot to be a church planter.” No it doesn’t. “Church planters are special.” No they’re not. “You’ve got to have a certain personality type to plant a church.” No you don’t. You just have to be faithful. Faithfully approach the throne of grace in prayer, faithfully preach God’s Word, faithfully administer the sacraments, and trust God to provide. That sounds like pretty ordinary ministry to me.
Let’s pray.
Heavenly Father, we come to You again in the name of Jesus, and Father we are thankful that You are sovereign, that You are in control of all things, that You do provide for Your people. Father, we ask that You would provide for us when we begin to feel anxious, that Your Spirit would remind us that You provide for us and that You have already provided eternity for us in Christ. Remind us of that daily. Strengthen Your people by the power of Your Spirit. In Jesus’ name we pray, amen.